A clinic known as the Brain Treatment Center (BTC) is offering what they call Magnetic Resonance Therapy, or MRT™, as a treatment for autism and other disorders, including sleep disorders, schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s disease, emotional disorders, anxiety, addiction, and for athletic performance.

MRT (always be suspicious of a medical treatment that is trademarked) consists of transcranial magnetic stimulation along with other modalities:

I will discuss both the use of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) for autism, and the specific claims made by BTC, starting with the latter.

BTC

The website for BTC has many signs of a dubious clinic, and offers an excellent example of the red flags that any prospective patient should watch out for when seeking treatment. I have already mentioned one – trademarking the name of a therapy, which they claim is unique to their clinic.

This is similar to the issue of patenting a medical use or technique. Medical use patents are generally considered unethical and counterproductive in the medical community, and are illegal in many countries, although still legal in the US.

Medical knowledge and treatments are, or at least should be, “open source” (as with scientific knowledge generally). The attempt to present a clinic’s or practitioner’s treatment as unique or special is a marketing ploy, but betrays a misunderstanding of the nature of medical knowledge. Advances in medicine need to be peer reviewed, examined by the community, and replicated. By definition there is no such thing as a “unique” and simultaneously legitimate treatment.

They actually write: “With our unique knowledge of neuroscience.” How did they manage to come by this unique knowledge? The very concept is anathema to science.

The BTC website also declares:

The Brain Treatment Center offers a unique science-based approach to the treatment of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This therapy addresses core underlying issues that contribute to behavioral and cognitive symptoms pervasive to autism spectrum disorder (ASD). It is our belief that every patient should receive personalized attention with all therapies and procedures. With our unique knowledge of neuroscience, Brain Treatment Center integrates an array of therapies and technologies to pioneer a new treatment to autism.

I don’t think they use the term “science-based” the same way that we at science-based medicine do. In addition to calling their treatment unique, there are some other red flags in the above paragraph. They claim to address underlying causes, as if that is somehow also unique to them. That is a common claim of so-called “alternative medicine” proponents – combining the unfair claim that mainstream medicine does not address underlying causes when possible with the claim that their special treatment does.

Another red flag is the claim that their treatment is “personalized.” This is another huge marketing ploy common in fringe clinics. Mainstream medicine already does personalize treatment, as much as possible, when our knowledge and the evidence supports specific personalizing factors. The question is – is BTC “personalizing” their treatments in an evidence-based fashion, or is this just marketing? Is there personalization superficial and for show, or does it actually improve outcomes? There is no evidence on their site, references to such evidence, or anything published I can find to support these claims.

Finally, they promote their treatment with video testimonials. The use of testimonials (rather than published evidence) to promote the efficacy of treatments I consider to be dubious and unethical. Testimonials are by definition anecdotal evidence. They tend to be misleading, because they are not controlled and systematic. A legitimate clinic should use published rigorous studies to support their treatments, not testimonials.

It’s OK to use testimonials to promote the quality of service provided by a doctor or clinic – our staff are friendly, we have convenient parking, short wait times, etc. – but not the treatments themselves.

The BTC website has this disclaimer on their testimonials page:

The opinions and views represented in these videos are not necessarily those of Brain Treatment Center.

This betrays one of the reason for using testimonials – they allow a person or clinic to imply medical claims without making the claims directly themselves. The disclaimer is the cherry on top – we don’t necessarily stand by these claims, but here they are. This is similar to, “results not typical,” or “your mileage may vary.”

TMS for Autism

Transcranial magnetic stimulation is a legitimate, cutting edge treatment modality. Is uses low-powered magnetic fields to alter the firing of neurons in one part of the brain, and can be tuned to a specific brain region and to either increase or decrease activity. It is very useful in research for identifying the neuroanatomical correlates of brain function. As a treatment modality, however, it is very new and existing research is therefore scant.

The best researched indication for TMS is depression. Other brain stimulation treatments, like electroconvulsive therapy, are well established. TMS is new, and the research so far shows promise but is insufficient to conclude that it definitely works. Existing research shows a statistically significant positive effect, but is limited by small effect size and lack or rigorous methodology – and this is the best current case for therapeutic use of TMS.

There are many other possible indications being investigated: migraine, Parkinson’s disease, insomnia, tinnitus, and others. However, none have been adequately researched to establish TMS as clearly effective.

The same is true of autism – there are some preliminary reports, but nothing compelling. In an interview for NOVA, TMS expert Mark George gave this summary:

There have been only a few small studies with TMS in autism, with inconclusive results. We really do not know which part of the brain is not working in autism, or how it is not working. We do not have the roadmap yet to know how to even think about using TMS to treat it. More research is needed, and maybe someday…

Not only is there insufficient evidence to conclude that TMS works for autism, we haven’t even done enough basic research to design an adequate treatment. TMS is not one treatment – it is a treatment approach. You need to know what frequencies to use on which part of the brain in order to apply the treatment effectively.

How does BTC deal with this lack of knowledge? They appear to just make it up. They give low level “subthreshold” TMS to the whole brain. They are not even properly using TMS.

Conclusion

TMS is an exciting research tool, and a potential new treatment modality for a variety of neurological conditions. However, a great deal of research needs to be done before it can be established as an accepted safe and effective treatment. So far there is only one indication for which TMS is close to being an accepted treatment, depression, and that is controversial.

TMS is not a scientifically established treatment for autism. This is a possible future application, but much more research needs to be done.

There is a tendency, however, for some dubious clinics to latch onto emerging therapies and then offer them to their patients for a long list of indications, supported only by preliminary evidence and testimonials. They can easily make themselves sound scientific, and cloak their clinic in the trappings of cutting edge science, but this is ultimately a deception – little more than clever marketing.

This is harmful on many levels, not least of which it may taint with pseudoscience a potential emerging therapy.

I guess I’ve been reading you too long. Because it didn’t sound science based, it sounded marketing based to me.

The whole tone sounds like they are advertising a new face cream or shampoo to me.

But I suppose when you are desperate, you latch onto anything that supports your hope and that is why they will probably be very successful. There are lots of desperate people and just enough cretins to feed on them.

This makes me think of Daniel Amen – they guy who does the informercial on PBS. Take legitimate neuroscience / imaging technologies to make things seem “cutting edge”, misrepresent their clinical applications via some nonsense proprietary “method” and voila! cash. Lots of cash.

TMS actually uses very high strength magnetic fields, with a high time derivative such that currents and voltages are induced in the brain across a quite large air-gap.

The degree of prior plausibility for using TMS for anything is small. It can’t stimulate specific brain regions, the current loops are necessarily large and the magnetic fields and field gradients are inches away from the regions being stimulated.

Any mechanism of action is probably similar to ECT, electroconvulsive therapy, which also doesn’t treat specific brain regions.

Actually – guided by previously recorded fMRI activations TMS can be fairly precise. Precise enough to induce only your index finger to twitch by exposing the corresponding contralateral motor strip to the field.

It’s currently used in research in a knock out sort of way to show causal (as opposed to simply looking at neural correlates) relationships between given brain regions and certain cognitive functions. Pretty cool stuff.

Participants in the active condition showed a near significant reduction in self-reported social relating symptoms from pre-treatment to one month follow-up, and a significant reduction in social relating symptoms (relative to sham participants) for both post-treatment assessments. Those in the active condition also showed a reduction in self-oriented anxiety during difficult and emotional social situations from pre-treatment to one month follow-up. There were no changes for those in the sham condition.

Conclusion

Deep rTMS to bilateral dorsomedial prefrontal cortex yielded a reduction in social relating impairment and socially-related anxiety. Further research in this area should employ extended rTMS protocols that approximate those used in depression in an attempt to replicate and amplify the clinical response.

Unbelievable! This is the first and only promising treatment for autism in about a two decades, and this guy can only think of the negative things to say about it.

Not surprising, the medical community just wants people to keep paying for “treatments” which don’t actually work. Things like therapy and special education. That’s why parents and patients are getting fed up, and trying their luck with anything, including going overseas for stem cell treatment.

There is enough proof that TMS works, so far. There have been a few studies published on this, like the one roger mentioned above. Also, look up John Elder Robison talks about TMS on Youtube.

We appreciate your thoughts related to our MRT treatment. This pushed us to conduct a formal RCT in Autism with kids from 4 to 12 years old using MRT. This is a triple blind study rigorously controlled trial for severity of symptoms and gender and age. Attached below is our press release with a brief description of our results. We understand this is a small n(28) study which cannot be generalized to apply to the entire population of ASD. However these findings very closely resemble our clinical data of over 700 cases of children with autism treated at our centers from 2005 to present. Rady Childrens hospital and UCSD are aware of our MRT-001 study results and are preparing to conduct a large n(400) RCT to validate our preliminary findings. We know this is limited but we believe this is a very important beginning of a novel treatment for ASD. We will look forward to your continued comments and criticism as we move forward.

Newport Beach, CA — This week at the 2014 Autism One conference in Chicago, Illinois, Dr. Yi Jin presented his data, “MRT-001“, which summarizes the results of a 28-patient double-blind pilot study using Magnetic Resonance Therapy to treat Autism Spectrum Disorder. In this trial, 40% of the patients became neurotypical by CARS score, another 40% improved their symptoms by 30%, and 20% of the patients did not respond.
Magnetic Resonance Therapy (MRT SM) is an emerging, novel form of patient-specific, non-invasive neuro-modulation treatment for neurological disorders for the large number of patients worldwide for which conventional medical, surgical, and therapy treatments have offered very little hope. MRT SM treatment was developed by the “Newport Brain Research Lab” (NBRL), a consortium of scientists, researchers and university professors based in Newport Beach, California. The NBRL operates a number of national and international outpatient clinics, under the name “The Brain Treatment Center (BTC)”.
In MRT SM treatment, BTC has augmented the well-established and safe technique of trans-cranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) through a proprietary algorithm to deliver a patient-specific treatment based on the results of a quantitative electroencephalogram (QEEG) and electrocardiography (ECG).
“What the Brain Treatment Center has done is revolutionary. Using evidence-based principles with TMS, they have created a delivery system that customizes treatment based on the patient’s own QEEG”, says Dr. Kevin T. Murphy, Associate Professor and Vice Chair of the Department of Radiation Medicine and Applied Sciences, UC San Diego Medical Center. “Addressing the core frequency mismatch that occurs in various parts of the brain, and not the patient’s symptoms per se, allows this system to be potentially useful in numerous psychological and neurological disorders, from autism to Alzheimers.”
The delivered magnetic stimulus appears agnostic to the diagnosis of the brain disorder treated. Whether the patient is suffering from depression or anxiety or autism, the “syncing” of the brain created by this technique, results in a reduction in brain frequency mismatch, and ultimately improves the patient’s symptoms and the underlying disorder.
“This non-invasive, personalized form of neuro-modulation is very patient-specific, and has far-reaching clinical implications”, says Dr. Charles Liu, Professor of Neurological Surgery, Neurology, and Biomedical Engineering and Director of the University of Southern California Center for Neurorestoration, Los Angeles, California. “As neurosurgeons, we are quite proficient at addressing the anatomical basis of disease. However, direct augmentation and restoration the functionality of the nervous system using
-more-
non-invasive neuro-modulation informed by recordings from each patient’s brain is an exceptionally exciting field in the future of clinical neurosciences. The initial clinical experience with MRT SM treatment, including the pilot study on autism patients by Dr. Jin, has been overwhelmingly positive and clearly supports a systematic and rigorous evaluation of this approach, representing tremendous hope to a large number of patients worldwide.” Preliminary research in MRT SM treatment has yielded dramatic and lasting results. “I just had to experience this myself, in my own clinic, with my own patients in order to process it”, says Dr. Murphy, whose nine-year old son was successfully treated by BTC for Asperger’s Syndrome, a high-functioning form of autism.
“This is an exciting paradigm-shifter in medicine. We like to know exactly how our medicines and treatment interventions help our patients, spending enormous amounts of time and resources elucidating the cellular mechanisms and biochemistry. And yet, after expending all of this time and effort, sometimes careers spent doing so, we often apply these medicines to our patients and achieve sub-optimal outcomes. At the moment, I cannot tell you the exact mechanism of how this is working, but I can tell you that the patient evidence in front of me is extremely compelling”, says Dr. Murphy.